To all:
Holland is far from perfect and Dutch prisons are pretty colored.
My cynicism towards the death penalty in the U.S. (and elsewhere) is based on a number of recent (Dutch) cases in which convicted "murderers" had to be set free after years in prison because a flawed proces of police investigation (they are only humans), presenting evidence to court by prosecutors (they are only humans) and decision making by judges (they are only humans).
For your information: the Dutch legal system does not know trial by jury!.
Furthermore I've read an alarming psychological Dutch case-study ("Dubious Cases, the psychology of criminal evidence") about the subject.
As soon as there seems to be some evidence often the prosecutor decides to throw the whole weight of the prosecution after it to reach a conviction. Any doubts raised - or even counter evidence found - after that decision are considered mentally disturbing and sometimes lead to a stubborn negation of fresh evidence and a suppression of creative thinking of the decision makers. Fresh thoughts imply the admission that an earlier decision may have been flauwed...
Often all attention of a faulty court decision is focused upon somebody innocent having been in jail (or executed). At least as dangerous for the society is the fact that
the real culprit of a serious crime is still walking around and not seldom commits another crime.
The disturbing truth is that there is no foolproof way of finding the truth in criminal cases, and since death penalty is by definition final any later found miscarriage of justice can't be redressed.
Although I regard the US legal system as one that gives better legal protection to suspects than many other western systems, including the Dutch (at least when you have a competent and motivated lawyer), miscarriaged of Justice have happened in capital punishment cases and are bound to happen in the future.
Only that should be enough to stop this retarded form of revenge.
